Into Mosedale

Loweswater – Mosedale – Floutern Tarn – Loweswater. 3.8.2014

A day of mixed weather – always threatening rain, flirting blue sky, splashes of weak sun – we left Loweswater following the bridleway to Ennerdale. As the lane climbed into Mosedale, crows and ravens sat on the walls, rising in their murders and unkindnesses as we approached. One big young raven, beak evilly hooked, hopped along the wall ahead of us; a dead sheep on the other side of a wall providing the explanation for the presence of so many of these birds of ill-omen. Through a gate and out into the valley proper, one path to the right leading up Mellbreak, the other, ours, alongside a small fir plantation, with one ash tree, its leaves beginning to redden, fretting in the wind.

Mosedale is quiet and lonely. Today in the wet it was very green, the bridleway clear at the start but soon merging into bog and marsh, water oozing up under each foot-fall, the black peat mixing with the red-brown earth. The river ran high and fast and loud, horseback brown. The head of the valley widened ahead of us, our path meeting a pass from Crummock Water, alongside Scale Force, and continuing West to Ennerdale. Along this pass we climbed up to Floutern Tarn, where Coleridge had been 212 years ago almost to the day on his own walking tour of the Lakes in August 1802. The view from the foot of the tarn tumbles down the valley towards Buttermere. The road from Buttermere into Newlands was pale grey amongst the darker grey of the rain soaked fells. The cloud cover over the higher fells made them rise into the mist infinite.

After lunch at the tarn, we took another smaller path North, and ahead saw the Solway Firth, the Scottish coast and the mountains of Dumfries and Galloway. And still behind us the sky grey, rain, cloud, the rain moving in thin veils drawn by an invisible hand. The path skirted Hen Comb and brought us up onto the brow of Loweswater Fell, again looking back, the distinct, geometric shape of Honister Crag still just darker than the air around it, but in the direction we walked, our own Lorton Vale in sunshine, with Fellbarrow above, Loweswater blue, twinned with the sky. Always on our Eastern hand, Mellbreak clothed imperiously in purple heather, with salmon pink edging.

The path peters out at Little Dodd – we dropped down the slope, easy going, and decided on a small act of civil disobedience to bring us back to Loweswater, a clamber over a padlocked gate and across the fields to an old barn and then down a straight track to Maggie’s Bridge, a perfect, lovely packhorse bridge. But trespassing these meadows brought us into the heart of the whole, the hills and the fields and the lake.

Loughrigg via Rydal

A rainless Sunday, so how can I resist the call of the fells? Admittedly I’d probably have gone out today whatever the weather, but any chance not to wear my parachute-like waterproof trousers is one I savour. I also forgot my camera and my pen ran out half an hour in, so my phone became both camera and notebook. I suppose this is what normal people do these days; it’s not a habit I’ll be developing though. But enough disclaimers; what of the walking?

It doesn’t make the greatest sense to go to Rydal in order to climb Loughrigg, but it avoids the roads and today I am in the mood for meandering. I take the old coffin route between Grasmere and Rydal, but soon break off to explore White Moss Common where the view over Rydal Water is framed by Loughrigg on my right, the steeps of Nab Scar to my left, and Wansfell straight ahead. The fells at the moment are covered in variations of brown and orange with Nab Scar in particular being richly rust-coloured. The sun begins to come out over Loughrigg as I sit absorbing it all.

Back on the coffin road, I soon turn off again to take a path that is barely more than a sheep-track, following it up a beck, terminating at what seems to me a cross between a dam and a bridge, where there is a fine view across to Loughrigg, and the air is filled with the sounds of the full beck. I lie on my stomach and look down into the pool below the bridge, trying to tune my ear to the sounds of the waterfall, attempting to distinguish between the overriding roar, the gentler bubbling underneath, wondering if some places sound hollower than others. It’s high above the path and a point to return to on a long summer evening, to bask and nose around the pools.

I try to imagine carrying a coffin over this rough path. My pace is steady and my feet are sure, but how sure would they have to be to keep such a weight from falling? It’s not as if there are professional pall-bearers. Yet those carrying the coffin would most likely be men who knew the fells, the broken surfaces, the many chances to trip or twist an ankle. Would grief get in the way of that knowledge? Would they even be grieving?

Down in the valley, the river Rothay is high and fast. I find a rocky outcrop at the southern tip of Rydal Water where an oak tree stretches out into the water. One day I’ll climb to the tip, but for now I sit astride a low branch and eat chocolate. The lower slopes of Silver How are touched with sunlight and the water washes the rocks below my dangling feet. A man in waders is fishing waist-deep in the lake, moving his net in graceful swooping motions. It looks very calming and I’ve always imagined that I’d enjoy fishing: an excuse to sit and think; the prospect of fresh fish for tea.

I walk along Loughrigg Terrace and look across the valley to where I sat above the beck earlier in the day. I like the fact that I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been there earlier. I double back at the end of the Terrace to climb Loughrigg proper. I have often thought of Loughrigg as a little lump of a fell, but I realise how unfair an analysis this is. I think as I ascend what a good climb it, a lovely amalgam of steep and flat and rough and smooth and even demanding the odd scramble. Although it doesn’t take very long at all to reach the top, this is certainly a fell that kicks back. And what a reward! What a masterstroke to save that vast view of Windermere to the very last moment. If it had been planned out it couldn’t have been done better. The whole panorama is splendid and the top itself is a delight – all tussocks and hummocks and little tarns, a gem of microcosmic exploration. I could wile away hours up here. As it is, I find a sheltered spot and eat chocolate and an apple whilst eyeing up the Fairfield Horseshoe, my current heart’s desire. The sun hits the fells in patches; spots of light making me think of Wordsworth’s ‘spots of time’, as though each golden patch were a moment remembered.

I descend quickly and come back via the river path and through White Moss woods, finishing as I began on the coffin route. My craving for the high tops is still unsatisfied but I have been ‘in the great City pent’ too long and my spirits rise with every contour line. How Romantic of me.